Discussion
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
@chamath, hard question: How can I convince you to come speak at an off the grid retreat for founders that takes place in the middle of nowhere between K/W, Toronto and Ottawa, focused on supporting Canadian startups this September?
Steven Pulver
@stevepulver · Co-Founder, Fireside Conference
@daniellevine @chamath Yes, let's make this happen! Would love this!
danielgold1
@danielgold1 · Sales hacking, startup hipster, Ottawa.
@daniellevine @chamath I'd drive up from Ottawa for this and since I'm from Ottawa and Chamath is from Ottawa that's like 3 upvotes.
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
@danielgold1 @chamath there's a big movement of Canadians coming together (especially in the corridor region) to support our startup community. Would be great to have you at @firesideconf
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@daniellevine when? i'll seriously consider it...
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
@chamath Sept 9, 10 and 11 (any or all of those dates). Let's do a real fireside chat. If you follow @firesideconf on Twitter I'll DM you the details.
Kingsong Chen
@kingsongchen · Founder at Lace, Marketplace for GovTech
What are a few opportunities that excite you in old industries (government, insurance, etc.)?
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@kingsongchen If I had to rank some areas that are both incredibly difficult and meaningful, i'd come up with the following rough rank:
1. climate change
2. energy density
3. transportation
4. agriculture
some more color:
on (1) we have crossed the rubicon on climate. there is no longer an oppty to roll back the damage we've done by many accounts but rather minimize the damage. as such, i think it becomes critical for us to figure out what things we can do to help improve climate (ie genetically engineering trees to absorb carbon as an example)
on (2) we need to fundamentally bend the current laws of energy density as we don't really have a deep understanding of new materials science or how we'd construct batteries and other forms of energy storage on a different price curve
on (3) we need to eliminate the vagaries of driving on roads and allows us to think about transport as not just (x,y) but also (x,y,z) and in this case, it would, specifically mean vertical take off and landing of consumer transportation devices
on (4) we won't have enough food to feed the entire population today and rather than focus on how to monopolize key inputs like water (which some very smart and rich people are doing) i'd like us to figure out how to dramatically improve yield.
Panashe Mahachi
@panashemahachi
@chamath @kingsongchen it's funny that Elon is taking on 3/4 at once :P
Mariah Lichtenstern
@lightedstar · Founder, CINESHARES
@chamath @kingsongchen HEMP is really good at absorbing carbon and does not deplete soil. It's also a great source of bio-fuel, paper, cloth, and plastic (Ford actually made a car of it once). Oh! Its seed is incredibly nutritious, too. Did I mention it grows almost anywhere? Unfortunately, beyond material construction, it can only transport mentally. Per Jack Herer's #TheEmperorWearsNoClothes
Colin James Belyea
@colin_james_belyea
I've been reading @alex_danco 's Emergent Layers posts- how does Social Capital fit into this? What scarce resource have you identified recently?
for reference: https://medium.com/swlh/emergent...
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@colin_james_belyea @alex_danco
The emergent layers construct, which i love, is an elegant way of helping us both understand the past and frame future potential. at social capital, we talk a lot about having a "prepared mind". what this means, for us, is having the ability to learn, slowly about potential ways of thinking about opportunities so that when we meet companies and areas of interest, we can jump on them quickly and be intellectually prepared to dig in and get to ground truth.
emergent layers is really an extrapolation of how the OSI stack evolved and how we can use that to think about the value creation that has yet to happen and some areas that could potentially be interesting for us to focus on. there are a bunch of scare resources at this current layer that i am fascinated by:
1. trust - how psychologically we build meaningful connections and "trust" others
2. time - how we can spend and save what more and more people find to be their more precious asset, more important than money, reputation, etc.
3. capability - how software and/or hardware can increasingly improve the SLA and QOS of various tasks to a point where we have high predictability in critical capabilities. ie how a surgical robot can now find a tumor and excise it with no meaningful risk of collateral damage vs a human surgeon.
Panashe Mahachi
@panashemahachi
How do you help the startups you invest in battle bureaucracy when trying to transform industries?
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@panashemahachi this is a really important question. there are two kinds of growth. rocketship growth --> monotonically negative growth thereafter OR steady compounding. transforming laggard industries will require an appreciation that the latter approach is the only path to success so being capital efficient and eliminating distractions from the rest of the silicon valley echo chamber are crucial. there is too much focus in silicon valley trying to recreate the magic of facebook or snapchat's rapid growth. i don't think these are replicable. the other kind of growth takes more discipline to appreciate, are more reliable over time and allow the building of durable companies.
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
@chamath @panashemahachi where does this focus come from? Is it the entrepreneurs trying to emulate their growth, or the investors demanding it? Perhaps both?
Panashe Mahachi
@panashemahachi
@chamath how would you balance the two kinds of growth if your product is in a laggard industry but benefits greatly from network effects?
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@marcusacarey Abso-Fucking-Lutely amazing... :)
Michael Lipman
@mlipman1
Is an iOS and Android duopoly good enough? Will there be a third significant smartphone OS in the next 5-10 years? (I enjoyed your discussion with Kara Swisher about the facebook phone project)
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@mlipman1 I'm still convinced that the cloud is the ultimate threat to both iOS and Android. over time, if you have equivalence in the products across both platforms and that both of them enable light client experiences married to powerful cloud experiences, the next platform is really just a browser (ultra fast) on a "phone" with a really fast internet connection that gets you to these cloud services you rely on.
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
danielgold1
@danielgold1 · Sales hacking, startup hipster, Ottawa.
@daniellevine @chamath @mlipman1 In order for it to be the chromebook strategy they have to build a new superfast internet for everyone and they aren't trying to do that only to get the internet TO everyone.
Nik Sharma
@mrsharma · Stealth Ad Agency CEO
Hi Chamath, thanks for doing a PH LIVE! Here's my hard question: With Facebook's recent announcements at F8, and incredible platform growth over the last 3-5 months, how would you have led the growth differently if you were still at Facebook? Would you have focused this heavy on video content across FB & Instagram? Also, what is your opinion on Facebook dropping programmatic advertising / becoming a DSP? Thanks! PS - would love to get coffee with you.
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@mrsharma I think facebook's strategy is solid but could use with a few doses of broadened scope. specifically, the most tactical improvement to the strategy would be viewing the user across a continuum of 24 hours. what i mean by this is that facebook is essentially a proxy for every internet user now. this said, their scope and scale are still bounded to the 2-4 hours per day that these internet users are at "play". i think broadening the scope to think about the user across their entire lifecycle per 24h day would drive another set of interesting, strategic bets at scale. ie how do you provide utility at work? how do you provide utility at sleep? how do you provide utility more broadly defined (while driving, at the doctors office, applying for a credit card etc.)...
in the meantime, there are some big, bold bets that can happen within their current scope. i'd seriously thinking about buying a big game studio, buying a video service like netflix and bidding more aggressively for live content starting with sports.
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
What are some experiences/insights/skills you learned during your time at Facebook that you're applying to your work at Social Capital today?
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@tomstocklein here is a short list:
1. don't take your self too seriously
2. live your truth (be yourself and live authentically)
3. appreciate that 99% of this is pure luck and it could be some other schmuck who got lucky
4. do the right thing even when its the hard or unpopular thing
5. see #1
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
@chamath Great list! Thanks.
Craig Hunter
@craighunter_ · General Manager, Ritual
How do you see self-driving cars actually shaking out - timelines, regulators, players? Who do you believe is best positioned to lead manufacturing, managing them, etc. Do you see any of the old guard surviving? What's the single biggest opportunity you see in this shift - where do you want to be involved?
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Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath · CEO, SocialCapital
@craighunter_ I think that self driving cars is closer to being a reality than many people expect. i am willing to put the following predictions out there:
1. there will be lawsuits brought by families of victims of vehicular manslaughter to bring level4 autonomy to the forefront sooner vs later
2. within 5 years, we will have level4 autonomy on the highways of many (if not all states)
3. within 10 years, we will have regulatory bodies (similar to medical ethics boards) that propose broad based decisions for the various car manufacturers to implement (ie crash into a school bus or into a group of seniors)
in all of this i think TSLA and GOOG are in the biggest lead with TSLA being further than anyone. i also think that most of the old guard won't survive.
the biggest economic oppty in all of this is probably owning TSLA and shorting the traditional car companies (ie a multi billion $ bet) in another 24-36 months once we have a precise time to market for level4 autonomy. i think a big open question is what the ride sharing companies do in this shift because as i see it, and if i were TSLA or GOOG, i would not license any of this extremely difficult technology to anyone including the ride sharing companies so that as the shift happens, they can launch their own services and compete in ride sharing via an autonomous fleet.